Sustainable Apps Report

Date: 30/03/2020

Authors: Étienne D’Arche, Liza Goldzahl, Nicolas Hoeps and Nicole Maiett

Directors: Alberto Andreu (DIRSE) and Alejandro Ruiz (ESCP)

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INDEX

INDEX ...... 2 1. Background ...... 3 2. Introduction ...... 4 3. Map of Apps ...... 8 3.1.- Environmental Applications ...... 8 a) Good on You...... 8 b) Staiy ...... 9 c) Wiser Heat ...... 10 d) Too Good To Go ...... 11 e) Yuka ...... 12 3.2.- Financial Applications ...... 13 a) Mint ...... 13 b) Wealthsimple ...... 14 c) Hedgeable ...... 15 d) Ellevest ...... 16 d) Birch Finance ...... 17 3.3.- Health Applications ...... 18 a) Think Dirty ...... 18 b) Goodguide ...... 19 c) Grove Collaborative ...... 21 d) Co-Go ...... 22 e) ShopWell ...... 23 3.4.- Social Applications ...... 24 a) October ...... 24 b) GoFundMe ...... 25 c) Kickstarter ...... 26 d) ShareTheMeal by the United Nations ...... 26 e) RoundUp ...... 27 f) Buycott– Barcode Scanner ...... 28 g) Cruelty Cutter ...... 29 4. to New Generations ...... 30 5. Bibliography ...... 31 5.1.- Articles ...... 31 5.2.- Apps ...... 32

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1. Background

This document is the result of a collaboration between ESCP Business School's - Bachelor in Management- and DIRSE, the Spanish Association of Social Responsibility Managers.

The activity consisted of a consulting project - Junior Consultancy Project (JCP)- by which a group of students developed a part-time research work simultaneously with their studies and with an overall dedication of about 200 hours.

In this case, the work identified as being of DIRSE’s interest was entitled: "Bringing CSR closer to young people" and consisted of the following objectives:

▪ Objective 1: Mapping Sustainable Apps ▪ Objective 2: To propose an adaptation of the CSR narrative focused on young people and for different channels.

This report responds to Objective 1.

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2. Introduction

Sustainability is becoming a growing issue in society as more and more people are desiring to positively contribute to problems such as climate change, social inequality and poverty. Not only is sustainability becoming more relevant in society, but also on business.

Sloan’s Management Review of Fall 2009 article which speaks about manager’s perceptions on sustainability, indicates that, despite companies having a very different view on what sustainability is, they do agree on the fact that it will have major implications on businesses’ future. Yet the businesses’ future should not be the only concern for entities as sustainability has an impact on every level of companies and can thus be decisive for its current success or failure.

The 92% of sustainability surveys’ respondents at that time (2009) (also referred to hereafter) had already indicated that sustainability was being addressed by their company, a number that has most likely grown ever since. Furthermore, the paper’s research also shows that sustainability efforts are not dependent on business cycles, but rather a process that is constant regardless of the financial situation of a company.

The scope of this report very much follows another idea. As previously mentioned, sustainability can be defined in many ways, but when asking experts about the topic, they mostly converged on the concept of the triple bottom line, i.e. in which sustainability has to “incorporate economic, environmental and social considerations” (MIT Sloan Management Review of Fall 2009). Looking at the opinion of surveyed experts in the same report, it becomes apparent that it is not only the responsibility of a company itself to pursue certain activities to have a sustainable business model, but also to choose the correct suppliers that have the same outlook on the topic.

When identifying the main drivers for corporations to pursue a change in their activities, it is understood that the pressure comes mainly from two factors: 1. Consumer’s perception of the company and 2. climate change as well as other current sustainability matters. In that matter, government legislation is regarded as a conditioner, since companies should be responsible for their actions and driving a positive change in legislation.

Positive consequences of the focus on sustainability by companies start from within the company as employee interest’s and retention significantly grow in corporations that have sustainable practices. An obvious positive consequence of these actions, according to the sustainability survey respondents, was the improved corporate image.

Another important aspect to look at is the difference between intent and action. Whilst there is a consensus on the need for sustainable activities, many companies are not fully committing to aggressive changes in their practices. Thus, this issue calls out for transparency in order to identify who is progressing the most in this aspect. Furthermore, a commitment to sustainability can be a sign of great management quality as well as audacity, as the main challenge to implement sustainable activities is the difficulty to forecast future events. Corporations with great abilities to identify the key actions for a sustainable future will have a great competitive advantage.

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Another important concept that is relevant not only for companies but also for most people, is the ability to track and measure the impact of their sustainable actions or the lack thereof. Many operations can have negative implications on the environment or other aspects of sustainability. Data analytics will greatly help to identify the areas in which people and companies can improve their efficiency, a fact that will greatly drive the pursuit of sustainable activities.

The concept of “shared value” is also key to this project and was introduced a few years ago by Michael Porter, professor of management at Harvard and director of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. Porter highlights the finding that companies are generally seen as self-absorbed entities, concerned only with their very own interests and which, at the same time, neglect the damage produced by their actions both on the environment and society. When many companies have adopted the concept of CSR, voluntarily or because it was imposed, they are usually accused of doing so for opportunistic reasons. However, "companies can create economic value by creating societal value".

Mr Porter advocates that companies must effectively assume their responsibilities, beyond development and CSR, and thus proposes the principle of “shared value”. This principle consists in giving the same importance to the financial performance of the company as to its social and environmental impact. As Michael Porter and Mark Kramer explain in an article for the Harvard Business Review in 2011, it is about "creating economic value in a way that also benefits society, by meeting its needs and challenges”.

Mr. Porter distinguishes 3 ways of generating shared value in a company: the renewal of products and services in order to adapt them to social needs, the increase in productivity in the value chain (by saving raw materials for example), and the contribution to the creation of "clusters" or competitiveness clusters such as Silicon Valley in California.

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A company’s value chain inevitably affects and is affected by numerous societal issues, such as natural resource and water use, health and safety, working conditions, and equal treatment in the workplace. Excess packaging of products and greenhouse gases are not just costly to the environment but costly to the business. Wal-Mart, for example, was able to address both issues by reducing its packaging and rerouting its trucks to cut 100 million miles from its delivery routes in 2009, saving $200 million even as it shipped more products.

Today, "shared value" initiatives are being implemented across many businesses and industries ranging from the pharmaceutical industry to banks.

According to another article published in the Harvard business review and written by Alberto Andreu Pinillos and José Luis Fernández Fernández, CSR has become limited to being only a way to promote the image of companies and should be replaced by the concept of “corporate responsibility”.

In these years, a "halo effect" associated with social programs and corporate philanthropy has been generated around CSR. Some believe that today, the media, companies and public opinion perceive that CSR is just linked to philanthropy as a way to build and improve image instead of being a way to create value from the core business of the companies. Therefore, in order to create value for the business, change is necessary. One line of progress is “Corporate Sustainability”.

The causes and consequences of that halo effect

The “halo effect” refers to the tendency of human beings to form an overall judgment about a person by using only one of their traits. One cause is that the perception of CSR in the media, public opinion and business has changed.

According to a study carried out in July 2009 among the main media in Spain, 38.3% of those interviewed understood that CSR is "everything that, without being obligatory and without seeking profitability, is undertaken by the company to improve its social environment"; 29.8% believed that it was "the attention that companies pay to the weakest in society and business aid to NGOs". For 50.9% of companies, especially smaller ones, "CSR is only a question of image, useful only for large companies.”

This shows clearly that the media and public opinion continue to associate CSR more with social commitment (altruism, philanthropy, etc.) than as part of the company's core business.

According to the article, three reasons have contributed to the "hijacking of CSR".

▪ Firstly, CSR is a difficult and not well-defined concept. "There is no single definition of what CSR means, as it generally depends on the culture, religion or tradition of each society.” ▪ Secondly, the concept is so wide that it is difficult to understand or manage. ▪ Finally, CSR is, above all, a way to improve the public image of the company.

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There is strong evidence that CSR, a victim of the "social" halo effect, has already reached its peak and presents serious limitations for linking up with the value chain. Therefore, we believe that progress would be to consolidate the concept of corporate sustainability. For the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), Corporate sustainability is a business approach that seeks to create long-term shareholder value by seizing opportunities and effectively managing the risks inherent in economic, environmental and social development.” It could be understood as a natural and necessary evolution of CSR to link it more to the value and “core business” of each company. Therefore, working on the concept of corporate sustainability makes it possible to overcome the limitations of corporate social responsibility due to its halo effect and its perception in the company, in the media and public opinion in general.

There are large differences between companies in terms of their efforts in addressing sustainability. The degree to which companies try to contribute to environmental, social and transparency issues will be key to their survival in the future, as these aspects will be a deciding factor for companies to have a positive public image, to be able to sell their products and to attract funding for their activities.

For this reason, we have compiled a series of applications and websites that will allow managers to identify the sustainability criteria that are most relevant to consumers and will thus dictate the markets in the future. The applications come from a variety of sectors intending to identify a larger quantity of aspects to take into account. This report is written both in English and Spanish.

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3. Map of Apps

3.1.- Environmental Applications a) Good on You

Good on You is an application that deals with the sustainability of . At its core, the application allows you to search for a clothing , giving you output on how sustainable the brand is.

To determine the level of sustainability of a company, Good on You analyses four aspects: People, Planet, Animals and progress (explained below):

▪ People: Good on You looks at the impact on workers across the supply chain including policies on child labour, forced labour, worker safety, freedom to join a union and wage payment. The brand’s supplier relationships and auditing practices are also considered. ▪ Planet: Consideration of resource use and disposal, energy use, carbon emissions, impacts on water, chemical use and disposal. ▪ Animals: Use of fur, angora, down feather, shearling, karakul, exotic animal skin, wool and leather use. ▪ Progress: The ability of companies to improve their practices in the stated categories.

It is also able to give you better alternatives to the clothing brand that you are searching for considering the price range in which the searched clothing brand is set. Furthermore, the application compares the public image that the brand wants to show with its actual activities, i.e. the sustainable actions it promotes of itself, to the real efforts being done by the company.

Good on You becomes a relevant of information in this field by giving a more detailed explanation of their findings and the rating given to the brand. A small paragraph on each of the previously explained categories efficiently presents this information.

Lastly, the application also promotes offers from companies rated as “great”, the highest possible rating on the applications.

In terms of the sources of the information used to rate the , they come from certification schemes like Fair Trade, Cradle to Cradle and the Global Organic Textile Standard.

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b) Staiy

Similar to Good on You, Staiy is another application that deals with the sustainability of fashion. Rather than rating products, Staiy is a store exclusively dedicated to sustainable fashion. The selection process of the featured brand happens in the background and follows a set of strict criteria.

The five aspects that are analyzed by the company to define a brand’s compatibility with their mission are the following: Water, Air pollution, Material use, Working conditions and Commitment to sustainability (explained hereafter):

▪ Water: Staiy analyses, on the one hand, the total usage of water in production and, on the other hand, the safety of the water use, i.e. if no toxic leftovers are discharged into sources of water. ▪ Air pollution: Staiy investigates whether a company uses renewable energy and their use of local production. The distance that products travel to their final destination is also taken into account. ▪ Material Use: Staiy sources for companies that produce clothing with organic and innovative materials that have the objective of achieving high-quality products whilst minimizing the carbon footprint and waste production. ▪ Working conditions: “Safe working conditions, regulated plants, fair wages and access to empowerment and education for all workers” is what Staiy is looking for under this aspect. ▪ Commitment: Staiy’s ideal partner is also one that gives back to communities by supporting social causes through donations.

The data used to evaluate a brand’s sustainability comes from two sources. Firstly, Staiy sends companies a questionnaire of 62 questions that they have to answer. In the second part of the process, Staiy tries to find 2 to 3 pieces of evidence for each of the given answers. “The facts [are] investigated on reliable sources, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Resources Institute, World Bank, Fashion Industry Pulse, Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation and many other research papers and scientific working group reports” according to the Staiy website.

A last feature of the application is the algorithm for style personalization. The algorithm works with three sources of information to provide accurate recommendations to the user of the application. Firstly, when the user logs into the application for the first time, they must answer a questionnaire to give certain preferences. Secondly, the application has a feedback system consisting of likes and dislikes, with which the system tracks further preferences. Lastly, the algorithm tracks the activity of the user on the application and website to find out what fields are the ones in which the user is interested in the most.

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c) Wiser Heat

Always at your side, always accessible, the Wiser Heat app is always with you. It is the smartest and easiest way to control the heat in your home. In your home or outside, at any time, you keep control of your home.

When you are stuck in traffic or at work, when you're away for the weekend, with Wiser Heat you can adapt your heating to your lifestyle and the unexpected.

The Wiser Heat app is the ultimate in comfort with just a few clicks. Turn the temperature up, turn it down or switch the house to ECO mode, you are in control. Save money when you need it, stay warm when you want it. The Wiser Heat app is compatible with IFTTT for more features and can be controlled by voice prompts from Amazon and Google. Wiser helps you save money, increase your comfort, and make your heating more comfortable to suit your habits and lifestyle.

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d) Too Good To Go

Each year, one-third of all food produced worldwide is thrown away. Too Good To Go is Europe’s leading app for fighting food waste. The free app connects customers to restaurants and stores that have unsold, surplus food, and counts 7.5 million users across nine countries, along with 15,000 partners including retailers, hotels and restaurants.

How does it work?

Too Good To Go is an app providing a marketplace that connects businesses which have surplus food with members of the public who want to rescue this food. Customers order a “magic bag” of surplus food at a discount on the retail price and then collect it from the stores in question in a pre- set collection window.

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Launched in 2016 in Copenhagen, the app has just hit the 10 million meal milestone – the number of perfectly edible meals its users have saved from the bin. This means the app has saved the equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of food and 20,000 of CO2 emissions from food production – a leading cause of climate change.

e) Yuka

Yuka is a mobile app that allows you to obtain information on the composition of a product by scanning it. It thus indicates the rating of the product on a scale of 0 to 100.

The rating is based on an algorithm considering three criteria:

▪ The nutritional composition of the scanned product (and in particular the calories, the protein and saturated fat or fibre, sugar or salt contents: this criterion corresponds to 60% of the rating). ▪ The presence or absence of controversial additives (30% of the score) ▪ And finally, the method of production of the product: whether it is an organic product or not (10% of the note).

The Yuka application allows you to better interpret the composition of products thanks to a colour rating system. Each criterion is associated with a coloured dot (dark green, light green, orange and red) indicating whether the data studied makes it an excellent, good, poor or bad product.

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At the start of the project, Yuka draws her information from Open Food Facts, an open and collaborative database. But in January 2018, the team decided to build their own database to be able to set up contribution control and verification systems, continuing to contribute partially to Open Food Facts. As of January 2020, the app has been downloaded more than 15 million times and is used by 5.5 million users monthly.

3.2.- Financial Applications a) Mint

Mint is a Personal Finance App that allows the user to track their expenses in order to give them a better overview of their money and possibly identify hidden expenses.

The application allows the user to put all their accounts together to have better visibility of cash, expenses and debt. This information is actively updated as it changes and the data is instantly categorized so that the user can have aggregated views of their expenses. Not only does Mint give the user better visibility of their money, but it also provides them with custom tips on how to save their money or how to invest it in a better way. Expenses and debt are also related to credit scores, something that is also provided by the application. It actively updates your credit score and gives you tips on how to improve it. You can also look at the evolution of the credit score at any time.

Keeping track of money not only has to do with quantities but in a large part also with time, which is why Mint provides a bill payment calendar to give greater visibility to the user’s future expenses. They can also create a budget, in order to limit their expenses.

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Lastly, it must be said that investment also makes up a large part of the application. Mint gives an overview of the user’s portfolio. It also identifies hidden costs in the user’s investment activities and gives suggestions on which activities to keep and which to discontinue.

Overall, Mint is a very complete personal finance application to track money through a large variety of channels.

b) Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple is an investment platform that allows the user to allocate a certain amount of money to an account. This money is then automatically allocated by the company’s financial advisors into a varied portfolio. The user can choose the risk level of their investment, so that the allocation of their money constantly and automatically changes to correspond with the chosen level. The current allocation of the money can always be tracked by the user. Furthermore, financial analysts are always available for the user to contact them about any doubt they may have concerning their investments.

Wealthsimple does not require a minimum account balance to allow as many people as possible to build up savings for the future. Also, their fees of 0,7% are very low compared to other investment platforms.

The most interesting part of the website is the possibility to have an SRI (socially responsible investments) portfolio. This allows the user to entirely allocate their money to sustainable companies. The minimum account balance for such an account is of $5000 as “someone smart needs to screen for the most socially responsible companies by combing through reams of data and designing cutting-edge analysis tools”, according to Wealthsimple’s website.

Currently, Wealthsimple has over 175000 users and manages a total of $3b of assets. 25% of the users have an SRI portfolio which shows the impact that this platform can have.

Example of a conservative portfolio.

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Example of a risky portfolio.

c) Hedgeable

Hedgeable, similar to Wealthsimple, is another investment platform that makes use of technology in order to adapt the user’s investments to their needs. Their mission is to “totally change Wall Street” as people “deserve an end to high fees, low transparency and watered-down products”, according to their website.

Its sophisticated data science engine enables the possibility of high customization of the user’s portfolio. It allows for an automated service that can be used without the active interaction of the user. Hedgeable also offers various accounts types, such as “Retirement & Savings “, “Small Business” or “High Net Worth”.

Again, the most important feature comes with the SRI investment option of the platform. Other than Wealthsimple, Hedgeable does not have a minimum account balance required for such investments. Hedgeable’s SRI investments support a variety of causes, ranging from LGTBQ equality over low carbon footprint to water purification. Each cause has a benchmark index that is taken into account when an investment is made in that field. An example for the field of LGTBQ equality is given hereafter.

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The totality of the SRI investment fields is the following, each of them having a certain benchmark as previously shown.

Lastly, it has to be said that the Hedgeable website features white papers on a variety of topics to precisely and transparently show how it operates.

d) Ellevest

Ellevest is an investment platform that is dedicated to benefiting women and countering the male-dominated investment world. 86% of investment advisors are men, and thus the industry is oriented towards salaries, life expectancy, career paths etc. of men. These issues give women a large financial disadvantage that only grows over time.

Interestingly, Ellevest’s ultimate goal is not to be exclusively dedicated to women, but to include financial data of both genders in order to maximize your returns depending on your gender. The data about the social comparison statistics is obtained “through Ellevate Network, a professional women’s network; and external research conducted by reputable institutions like Pew Research Center, Morningstar, McKinsey, Catalyst, and the United Nations”, according to the website.

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Furthermore, Ellevest works by making decisions based on targets that are set by the user. The user can define the goal they want to have money for and the amount of time that they will be investing. This way, Ellevest calculates the needed initial capital and the risk level of the investments.

Lastly, it is important to state that Ellevest works with gender-lens investing. This term describes the fact of investing to eliminate gender disparities. This translates, for example, into investing in companies that have proven to be very supportive of women in their operations.

d) Birch Finance

Birch Finance is an application that deals with the use of credit cards. It aims to allow the user to spend their money more efficiently by exploiting their credit card’s reward system.

The app works by receiving the credit card information of the user. If they have more than one credit card, Birch will give real-time recommendations on which card to use for each purchase that the user intends to complete. Furthermore, the app analyses the user’s consumption patterns and consequently suggests 3

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credit cards with which they can have more favourable rewards. It also shows them the amount of money that could be saved from obtaining these credit cards. These suggestions happen through the comparison of the user’s credit card with over 100 rewards-earning credit cards in the following sectors: Airline, Hotel, Student, Shopping, Travel and Cash Back Rewards. The user can also which of these rewards they prefer in order to receive more accurate credit card recommendations

In terms of data security when connecting to your accounts, Birch uses end-to-end 256-bit AES encryption, the same level as normal banks in order to protect the user’s data.

Birch Finance es una aplicación que se ocupa del uso de tarjetas de crédito. Su objetivo es permitir al usuario gastar su dinero más eficientemente explotando el sistema de recompensas de

3.3.- Health Applications a) Think Dirty

Think Dirty is an application that allows the user to scan a cosmetic product in order to obtain detailed information about it. The information depicted by the app concerns the chemical components of the product. These components are rated depending on the long-term effects they can have on someone’s health. According to their website, Think Dirty consciously avoids considering information about environmental or social responsibility in order to not distort the rating, as it specifically wants to focus on the health aspect. The company is also willing to give products that have been voluntarily submitted to third party certifiers a slightly higher rating.

Think Dirty also takes into account the “fragrance loophole”, in which companies do not disclose certain chemicals in order to protect their product and simply list it as “fragrance”. The application

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automatically gives products containing this label a negative rating due to the proven negative health effects of these products.

The used data to identify how each product affects health in the long-term is taken from non- profit and government agencies in North America. International and European sources are also taken into account. Some examples are the following: Health Canada Labelling of Cosmetics (1), European Union Health Commission CosIng (2), US Food and Drug Administration - Cosmetics Products Ingredients (3), International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The company also sells a so-called “Beauty-box” in which they include sponsored products that have been proven to have no negative health effects.

Inside the application itself, the user can first scan the desired product to obtain information on its health effects as previously mentioned. The user obtains the ratings of the product as well as possible healthier alternatives for the scanned product. Lastly, the application also provides direct links to purchase the products on the applications

b) Goodguide GoodGuide provides consumers with information on over 75,000 products regarding personal care, cosmetic and household products to help guide more informed buying decisions that will drive the development of safer, healthier, and more sustainable products.

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The team comprises over 50 scientific professionals including chemists, toxicologists, life cycle assessment and regulatory experts.

With GoodGuide, you can:

▪ Understand the source for how product information was collected and become educated on the efforts manufacturers are making to be more transparent to the public about how they are making their products; ▪ Use the ratings to compare products on the market within a given product type or usage. ▪ Find out whether a product contains ingredients with identified health hazards. ▪ Rely on our science expertise to interpret complex information about products and whether the chemicals contained have potential health hazards.

The data processing

GoodGuide collects product ingredient information through publicly available data (found on ingredient labels and websites) or directly from the manufacturer. In the latter case, the manufacturer confidentially discloses the full formulations of the products. Full formulation means that the manufacturer made all ingredients contained in the product available to GoodGuide, as well as the amount (concentration) of that ingredient.

This helps GoodGuide to weigh the ingredient appropriately during scoring, without sharing confidential business information with the public.

Once GoodGuide has the ingredient information for products, they identify which of those ingredients have identified hazards using authoritative scientific and regulatory sources. These sources include: The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), State of California Proposition 65 List, Health Canada and each product page will indicate the source of the product information.

The GoodGuide scoring committee has assessed the quality, credibility and applicability of each contributing data source before designating the source for use in GoodGuide scoring.

It then comes to the rating. GoodGuide ratings are based on an evaluative health algorithm that was developed by leading experts in the fields of environmental and health sciences and context of use (i.e. products applied dermally vs. ingested). Each rating primarily reflects an assessment of the ingredients in a product. To rate formulated products in the personal care and household categories, the app examines whether a product's ingredients are on any of the health hazard lists used to identify chemicals with health concerns.

Beyond that, the manufacturer can provide the same information for “fragrance”.

▪ In the U.S. while Cosmetic products are governed by laws which require all ingredients to be listed on product labels, “fragrance” are exempt and can be generally referred to simply as “fragrance” on product labels. ▪ Some laws also state that only some ingredients above a level of concentration need to be listed for certain household products. To identify products where manufacturers have disclosed to GoodGuide a greater level of ingredient and fragrance information

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than necessary to comply with product labelling requirements, look for “Provided by the Brand. Rated by GoodGuide”.

c) Grove Collaborative

Grove Collaborative is an online brand and retailer for natural home and personal care products.

As a mission-driven Certified B Corporation, Groove is recognized as a business doing good for people, animals, communities, and the planet. They believe companies can and should do more to improve the world and the communities they serve and for this reason, they have created a replenishment-based service that gives families across the country access to products they love, good for their bodies, their homes, and the environment. More specifically, Groove offers products that are gentler to earth, prioritize post-consumer materials for packaging, and carbon offset every shipment that goes out our door.

How does it work?

Grove Collaborative exclusively carries products that meet their standards for being non-toxic, effective, sustainable, and cruelty-free. They value safety, transparency, social welfare and exclusively work with partners which also do.

The app doesn’t just test every product it sells, but it also scrutinizes its ingredients and supply chain to ensure it does its job to earn its place on your shelf.

Grove Collaborative also crafts the products the consumer wants for its home. This means that the Groove team:

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▪ Leads with organic and plant-based ingredients whenever they’re available ▪ Never uses synthetic fragrance or any other harmful ingredients. Just use essential oils and other botanical-based ingredients. ▪ Work exclusively with certified manufacturers to ensure everything they offer is 100% cruelty-free. ▪ Constantly seek ways to minimise plastic in the products and packaging.

Within their products, you won’t find the following anti-ingredient list: Ammonia, Chlorine, Ethanolamines, Formaldehyde, Cyclomethicone, Paraben, Fosfates, Triclosan.

d) Co-Go

Co-Go is a free app that puts you into contact with a whole range of businesses that share the same eco values as you, covering every part of your lifestyle. You begin by selecting what matters to you, choosing from the options: organic, carbon-conscious, vegan, sustainably sourced, co-operative, fairly traded, living wage, reduces waste, cruelty-free and supports charities. By linking your card up, you’re able to track your spending and watch how you have supported good sustainable businesses.

Co-Go accesses each business against a strict criteria framework, verifying each claim using data from dozens of accrediting organizations including Living Wage, Rainforest Alliance and the Carbon Trust. Once verified, businesses are awarded accreditation badges. Users are then able to select from these accreditation badges, so the app can match them with businesses taking action on issues they care about.

Aligned with the UN SDGs, CoGo accredits businesses for the good they are doing to respect the environment.

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e) ShopWell

ShopWell is a website and free mobile app that can help you make healthier, more informed choices in the grocery store based on your nutrition & health goals. Have a food allergy or food intolerance? ShopWell deciphers the ingredient list of products to identify which ones contain the allergens you are trying to avoid. When you’re at the grocery store, you can scan foods using the app and then add them to a shopping list or browse their database of foods to find those that meet your health goals.

How does it work?

▪ Scan products to see how they match with your Food Profile. Get a personalized score from 1 to 100 based on your dietary preferences, age and gender. ▪ Discover and trade up to foods that better fit your goals. Whether you're looking for low sodium ham or vegan cheese, Shopwell recommends better matches for you. ▪ create and share lists of your favourite finds.

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3.4.- Social Applications a) October

October is a crowdfunding app whose mission is to empower businesses to thrive by simplifying and democratizing their funding. The app was born in France at the end of 2014 and today it operates as a pan-European lending platform with offices in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany by creating an efficient link between lenders and companies.

October believes that, with more than 23 million companies representing more than 90 million jobs, SMEs are the heart of the European economy. For this reason, their mission is to support their growth by efficiently matching private and institutional lenders to their financing needs.

Moreover, they believe that transparency is the key. This means that both sides of the marketplace always have access to their selection criteria, their results, their financing processes and all our statistics. Transparency is what makes the platform work in a fast, simple and responsible way.

For every moment of growth of the company, October helps it take it to the next step by:

▪ Digitizing the company: Implement a new Customer Relationship Management tool, launch your e-commerce operations. ▪ Attacking international markets by developing commercial operations abroad or a new production unit

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▪ Refinancing the business: refinancing your partners' current accounts, bonds or vendor credits ▪ Getting the business known: attracting new clients by launching or communication campaigns. ▪ Transforming the company: renovate its hotel or its restaurant, increase capacity, renew furnishings. ▪ Growing the team: growing the company’s workforce and production capacity by hiring and/or training employees. ▪ Optimize your production: improving the production efficiency by acquiring new or second- hand machinery, equipment or vehicles. ▪ Acquire a business ▪ Value sustainable projects: reducing the company’s ecological footprint by investing in energy efficiency and sustainable projects.

b) GoFundMe

GoFundMe is known to be one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms in the world. It is dedicated to raising funds for people who are most in need. These people can very easily create events for the other GoFundMe users to donate. The main categories of events that people can donate for are explained hereafter, and show the charitable profile of GoFundMe: Health, In Memoriam, Emergency, NGOs, Animals, Education. Another important aspect of GoFundMe is the fact that the app does not charge any commissions, making it easier for the money to reach the end-user. The platform’s current user base consists of around 50 million people, with total donations reaching 5 billion dollars.

Its 3 main concerns are:

▪ Trust: The Trust & Safety team works round the clock to ensure the users’ safety and protect against fraud. GoFundMe also provides the industry’s first and only donor protection guarantee. With eight years of experience and the most money raised, GoFundMe has earned the trust of respected institutions and government officials around the world. ▪ Speed: The app helps families and communities get back on their feet quickly. The majority of their organizers can withdraw funds immediately, while many other platforms place a 7 to 30-day hold. (In just the first 30 days following Hurricane Harvey, GoFundMe delivered over $27 million directly to people affected by the storm) ▪ Reach: GoFundMe helps you easily share your story far and wide by email, text and to rally support for your cause. They also have a dedicated team looking for great stories to promote and share with the media and the community.

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c) Kickstarter

Kickstarter, as opposed to GoFundMe, is a crowdfunding platform that is dedicated to creative projects rather than funding people in need. The different sectors are the following: Art, Comics, Design, Cinema, Food, Games, Music, Publication. Projects on the platform usually feature a short description. It is also typical for Kickstarter users to donate by “categories”. From a certain amount of money donated, the donor will receive a certain compensation. For instance, if someone is donating for the creation of a book, from a certain amount donated, say $5, the donor could receive a copy of that book he donated for.

Kickstarter’s objective is mainly to attract funding for these creative projects with the possibility for the creator to be in full control of his vision rather than giving investors a say in the project.

To this day, 179.163 projects have been financed by a total of 18 million people, who jointly donated a sum of 4.8 billion dollars.

Kickstarter is officially a public benefit corporation, making data protection and transparency a major priority for them. Their focus is to benefit society by helping start these creative projects. Lastly, another interesting aspect of the platform is the Kickstarter , in which a few projects are highlighted by the company to attract additional funding.

d) ShareTheMeal by the United Nations

“Together, we believe we can be the generation that will end world hunger.”

ShareTheMeal is a crowdfunding smartphone application to fight global hunger through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). It enables users to make small donations to specific WFP projects and to track its progress. In 2019, ShareTheMeal had over 1.5 million downloads and 45 million meals shared. Google awarded ShareTheMeal as one of the Best Apps of 2016 in the "Most Innovative" category. ShareTheMeal also won the Google Play Award for Best Social Impact.

How does it work?

With one click on the application, users can donate €0.40 (or more) to feed a child for one day. In the app, you can choose between several countries by sliding your finger to the left. The United Nations World Food Programme receives the funds and distributes the

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meals. Users can see on the application who they helped and where. The app is available in 9 languages.

Since the launch of the app in 2015, they have aided some of the world's biggest food crises including Yemen, Syria and Nigeria.

e) RoundUp

The RoundUp App is an easy way to provide on-going financial support. How does it work? You register a credit card(s) via the RoundUp App, and each purchase you make on that card is automatically rounded up to the next full dollar, and the difference is donated to whoever you choose.

For example, you go to the grocery store and use your credit card that you've registered with RoundUp to benefit someone.

In this example, the bill comes up to $56.45. $56.45 will be charged to your credit card for your grocery bill, as normal, and then a second charge will automatically be made for $0.55 as a The RoundUp App is the 1st fundraising tool that automatically rounds up users’ credit or debit card transactions and donates the "change".

About security, Payments are securely processed by Stripe, the same payment processor used by giants like Facebook and Lyft.

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Connection to your credit or debit card accounts provides only a read-only history of transactions, the app cannot change anything within your account.

Finally, no credit card information or bank credentials are ever stored on your phone or their servers.

f) Buycott– Barcode Scanner

With this app the user can join campaigns created by some of the world’s best non-profit organizations to support causes you care about. Buycott has campaigns to products from companies opposing GMO labelling, using child labour and countless other issues that consumers need to be aware of.

The user can also scan product barcodes to learn a product's history. If the user comes across a product that does not match its values, he/she can check the suggested alternatives to find a better match.

Moreover, the user can broadcast its purchase decision to create impact and/or communicate it to the company.

If the user is particularly involved, he/she can create its own campaign from boycott.com

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g) Cruelty Cutter

Cruelty Cutter is cruelty-free shopping made simple.

By using the app, the user casts away any doubts when purchasing items by simply scanning its barcode and having an immediate response about its animal testing status.

Cruelty-Cutter has every company in the "Leaping Bunny" and PETA lists and it is the most up-to-date and vigilant cruelty-free list on the market.

If a product turns out to be “cruel”, the app gives the user the possibility to share the results with friends on social media and also share your concern or praise with the company itself. Companies that still choose to test on animals will get the message that Cruelty-Cutter users are against what they are doing. The more shares, the more “Doggie Dollars” the user will earn towards coupons for cruelty-free items.

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4. Communication to New Generations

The last chapter of this report is dedicated to communication. We believe in the necessity of simplicity for communication to be effective.

By looking at many press releases of different companies, for example, explaining their new sustainability strategy, we realized that their wording and structure was overly complex and overwhelming, especially for younger generations. The problem of this lies on the fact that the younger generations are the people that these documents are usually appealing to, the ones that are going to benefit from and are going to be responsible in part for their execution.

Consequently, we believe that information has to be transmitted more simply than how it is currently being done. We identified that for a message to be understood easily by the younger generations, it needs to:

▪ Be as concise as possible ▪ Feature figures or data that is easy to understand ▪ Be accompanied by a picture to emphasize ▪ Be published on social media, preferably Instagram.

To illustrate this, we have created an example of how one can ‘translate’ an official into a more ‘youth-friendly’ setting using Instagram Stories. The example is the translation of Microsoft’s press release announcing that it is going to be carbon negative by 2030.

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5. Bibliography

5.1.- Articles

▪ A.C. (2020): “Too Good To Go lance #MaVilleAntiGaspi pour les élections municipales!”. Demotivateur Food: https://www.demotivateur.fr/food/too-good-to-go-lance- mavilleantigaspi-pour-les-elections-municipales-18866

▪ ANDREU, A. & FERNÁNDEZ, J.L. (2011): “De la RSC a la sostenibilidad corporativa: una evolución necesaria para la creación de valor”. Business Review, 207. Harvard Deusto

▪ BERNS, M., TOWNSEND, A., KHAYAT, Z., BALAGOPAL, B., REEVES, M., HOPKINS, M. & KRUSCHWITZ, N. (2009): “The Business of Sustainability: Results and insights from the first annual”. MIT Sloan Management Review. MIT SMR Editors & BCG

▪ CHASE, K. (2015): “It Is Now Free To Be Cruelty-Free”. THEDODO: https://www.thedodo.com/it-is-now-free-to-be-cruelty-free-1414965608.html ▪ DELLINGER, A.J. (2013): “‘Buycott’ App Review: Scan a barcode and learn everything about the company that made it”. Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/buycott-review/ ▪ GAETA, C. (S.F.): “Best 10 Apps To Help You Live More Sustainably”. Luxiders Editor: https://luxiders.com/10-sustainability-apps-you-need/ ▪ IRBY, L. (2019): “The 8 Best Personal Finance Apps of 2020”. The Balance: https://www.thebalance.com/best-personal-finance-apps-4170650 ▪ O'HEAR, S. (2019): “Staffbase, the mobile-first employee communication and ‘experience’ platform, raises $23M Series C”. JE: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/09/staffbase/

▪ PORTER, M.E. & KRAMER, M.R. (2011): “Creating Shared Value: How to reinvent capitalism—and unleash a wave of innovation and growth”. Business Review, enero- febrero. Harvard Deusto

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▪ RENARD, C. (2018): “Good On You, l'appli pour adopter une mode (un peu) plus écoresponsable”. Grazia: https://www.grazia.fr/lifestyle/high-tech/good-on-you- application-mode-ecoresponsable-894312 ▪ ROY, P. (2019): “The Best Apps To Help You Live More Sustainably”. Vogue Britain: https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/the-10-best-sustainability- apps?image=5d544d19e59828000877d477

▪ SIMPSON, K. (2017): “7 Of The Best Sustainable Living Apps”. The Green Hub: https://thegreenhubonline.com/2017/12/14/7-of-the-most-incredible-sustainable-living- apps/

▪ THE GOOD TRADE (S.F.): “6 Socially Responsible Investment Platforms That Help You Invest In Both Purpose & Profit”: https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/socially- responsible-investing-platforms

5.2.- Apps

▪ Birch Finance: https://birchfinance.com/ ▪ Buycott: https://www.buycott.com/; https://apps.apple.com/us/app/buycott-barcode- scanner-qr-bar-code-scanner/id585933440 ▪ Co-Go: https://cogo.co/; https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/cogo-connecting- good/id1440670808 ▪ Cruelty Cutter: http://cruelty-cutter.org/ ▪ Ellevest: https://www.ellevest.com/ ▪ Green Flex: https://www.greenflex.com/en/ ▪ Grove Collaborative: https://www.grove.co/home ▪ GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/https://www.gofundme.com/ ▪ Good Guide: https://www.goodguide.com/#/; ▪ Good on You: https://goodonyou.eco/ ▪ Hedgeable: https://www.hedgeable.com/ ▪ Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/

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▪ Mint: https://www.mint.com/ ▪ October: https://es.october.eu/tag/crowdfunding/ ▪ RoundUp: https://roundupapp.com/; https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roundup-app-donate- change/id1350497395 ▪ ShareTheMeal: https://sharethemeal.org/es/values.html; https://sharethemeal.org/fr/index.html; https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharethemeal- charity-donate/id977130010 ▪ Shopwell: https://www.innit.com/shopwell/; https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shopwell- better-food-choices/id393422300 ▪ Staffbase: https://staffbase.com/en/ ▪ Staff Employee: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/staffbase-employee-app/id918506038 ▪ Staiy: https://staiy.com/ ▪ Think Dirty: https://www.thinkdirtyapp.com/verified-brands/ ▪ Too Good to Go: https://toogoodtogo.fr/fr; https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/too-good-to-go- pas-de-gaspi/id1060683933 ▪ Transparency: https://brandservices.amazon.com/transparency; https://apps.apple.com/us/app/transparency/id1151746202 ▪ Wealthsimple: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-gb/ ▪ WiserHeat: https://wiserheat.com/; https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schneider_electric.WiserHeat&hl=fr ▪ Yuka: https://yuka.io/es/; https://www.test-achats.be/sante/alimentation-et- nutrition/alimentation-saine//app-yuka

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